Do you have experience working with trains containing hazardous materials?
Your interviewer is curious about how familiar you are with the types of materials their rail cars transport. When answering this question, share your experience, if any, and your familiarity with the rules and regulations applying to the transport of those materials. If you want to go above and beyond in delivering your answer, familiarize yourself with the types of railcars dedicated to the materials they transport. In fact, on their customer-facing website, you can take a virtual tour of their unit train, or each railcar.
"In my current role, we move dangerous shipments regularly. Before joining the rail transport industry, I worked in road transportation where we moved trucks of gasoline and highly flammable goods. I am TDG (Transportation of Dangerous Goods) certified and have had zero accidents throughout my career. I recently obtained my TDG certification and am ready for further safety training when it comes to hazardous or restricted shipments."
When transporting hazardous materials, BNSF takes responsible care and emphasizes protecting its employees, customers, and the communities through which they operate. "Our environmental team has a strong commitment to training local responders on hazmat awareness and emergency response. We want to ensure that we can work with communities and respond quickly in the unlikely event that a hazmat emergency occurs." They also advertise transparency, through honoring "Hazardous Materials Information Requests" to local emergency responders, elected officials, and emergency management officials. Officials requesting the information are asked to agree to use the information solely for emergency response planning purposes and not to make the information public for security reasons. This information is provided on a confidential basis.
According to their virtual tour, tank cars carry liquids or gasses, gondolas can carry coal, aggregates, ores, or scrap metal, hoppers carry agricultural or industrial products, boxcars transport industrial or consumer goods, autoracks carry cars or trucks, intermodal flatcars carry containers or truck trailers, centerbeam flatcars carrying lumber or steel, and other flatcars carrying a variety of products such as wind turbine blades, machinery, pipe or wood poles.
Community answers are written by other candidates practicing this set. Reading how others frame the same question is one of the fastest ways to sharpen your own.
Anonymous Answer
I am new to hazardous materials but I am safety conscious and I am comfortable working with hazardous materials.
Marcie's Feedback
Why are you comfortable working with hazardous materials? What about your personality indicates that this won't be a problem for you? Reiterating your commitment to safety is a good move here. Take it a bit further by discussing how you plan to ensure the safety of those around you when hazardous materials are involved. Good job!
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